Earth 2150: Lost Souls

Given the amazing visuals in WarCraft III and the forthcoming
C&C Generals, it's fair to say that as a breed, RTS games are
no longer largely 2D, overhead titles which lack the definition of
their counterparts in other genres. However, Earth 2150: Lost Souls
hasn't grown a great deal on the back of past outings, and the game
starts off looking tired, despite some nice weather and terrain
effects, and some detailed unit design. Not a good start.

Fortunately, though the graphics engine may be a bit creaky
compared to current monstrosities, it's very good at what it does
do. Zooming in and out is a very smooth process on all but the
wimpiest of PCs, with units, buildings and terrain scaling nicely,
and the dynamic camerawork throughout is almost always good enough
that you don't need to worry about it, leaving you to concentrate
on the strategy of pummelling your opponent.

And there's a lot of strategy to worry about in Lost Souls. It's
one of the most detailed, old-school RTS titles we've come across
since StarCraft.

No, it is the end of the world

As you can see, I'm about to get pummelled when I round this hill, but not before

The narrative aims to wrap up those ends still flapping in the
nuclear winds of previous titles, and with the Earth still
teetering on the brink of destruction as it spins uncontrollably
off its axis, players must take the reigns of the Eurasian Dynasty,
Lunar Corporation or United Civilized States' forces and fight
through a number of missions in a story-driven campaign.

As the final remnants of humanity fight bitterly for survival on
the face of the Earth, you'll find yourself not endowed with
pre-made units to 'tank rush' one another with, but armed with
scientists and lengthy technology trees to build your own units.
Although you can choose from a few of prefab units, the emphasis is
on researching things like chassis and weapons technology
separately, and combining them to build your own custom units from
scratch. These units can then be deployed in battle, and as with
The Moon Project, the last game in the series, you can store these
at your base between missions, and over the course of the campaign
they grow in experience and ability. This approach is obviously a
lot more realistic than the likes of C&C, but sometimes Lost
Souls perhaps goes a little too far - having to worry about how
much ammo individual units have, for instance, can be maddening.

The attention to detail elsewhere is greatly appreciated though.
Being able to paint your units the colour of enemy troops can lead
to some incredibly sneaky multiplayer tactics, although
disappointingly the computer AI has no trouble spotting impostors.

Precision

Fog is a natural occurrence, rather than a technological nuisance, when it comes to controlling your forces in Lost Souls

Apart from that though, AI is on the whole excellent. The
charred remains of the Earth's terrain form a formidable barrier
between you and your enemy's forces, and it'll often take a while
to pick a route to the other end of the map, splitting your forces
asunder unless you're careful. In fact, there's a lot more
real-life battle strategy to Lost Souls than we'd anticipated. The
AI is wise to this, and makes sure to position troops in elevated
positions and to avoid obstacles entirely without waypoints,
maintaining line-of-sight during an encounter and retreating behind
cover if needs be.

The engine also deals with day and night cycles, which allows you
to attack in the twilight, hopefully when the enemy least expects
it. What's more, because it's so frequently dark in Lost Souls, you
have to pay attention to the headlights setting on your units and
buildings - a bit of floodlighting costs a bit of energy, but it
saves a bit of hassle when enemy tanks roll into the base and you
spot them quickly.

The only thing in Lost Souls which doesn't match up to the flow of
attention to detail is the audio aspect. Sound effects and unit
voicing is repetitive and mildly irritating after a few missions,
and the soundtrack is puzzlingly static. Tunes play oblivious to
the action, when in this day and age we generally expect the music
to ebb and flow with the mood and situation. A small oversight
though, and it doesn't detract too greatly from the action
on-screen - the music isn't too bad, which helps!

Final destruction

Lost Souls is an excellent old-school real-time strategy game.
Thanks to the customisable units and obvious thought that has gone
into each of the three campaigns, they're all equally worthy of
your time. Each side feels like an entirely different force.
Although the tech may be a bit long in the tooth, the game is very
well composed and each campaign sufficiently long and challenging
that you'll be playing it for quite a while, particularly if you
can rope some friends into the LAN or internet play. Easy to get
into and hard to let go of, Lost Souls adds an almost unblemished
varnish to the old-school RTS.

8
/
10

Earth 2150: Lost SoulsTom BramwellReview - Tom fights for survival in one of the best old-school RTS games of the year2002-10-24T12:51:00+01:00810